Tue 14 Oct 2014
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS Review: MARGOT ARNOLD – Exit Actors, Dying.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
by Ellen Nehr
MARGOT ARNOLD – Exit Actors, Dying. Playboy Press, paperback original, 1979. W. W. Norton / Countryman Press, softcover, 1988.
This paperback original is the first of the adventures of Penelope Spring, American anthropologist, and Toby Glendower, Welsh archaeologist. We meet the pair in Turkey on sabbatical from Oxford. The action begins when Penny is seated in an amphitheater and sees a body lying on the grassy stage below. By the time she returns with the police, however, the body has disappeared.
Next, a member of a film crew staying at the same hotel as the academicians turns up missing. Toby finds the man`s purloined body, and he and Penny decide to investigate. (Toby has a less-than-altruistic reason: He needs to be back in England in ten days, but the police won’t let him leave until the murder is solved.)
Using talents developed over the years in their academic specialties, the two middle-aged professors become involved with the personnel of the motion-picture crew and their dependents, as well as study the Turkish countryside, to uncover the criminal and his. motives. This is a nice portrayal of two endearing characters and their warm, nonsexual relationship.
Among Arnold’s other paperback originals are The Cape Cod Caper (1980), Zadok’s Treasure (1980), and Lament for a Lady Laird (1982). These allow the reader to explore the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts, an archaeological dig in Israel, and a Scottish estate.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
The Penny Spring annd Sir Toby Glendower series —
1. Exit Actors, Dying (1979)
2. Zadok’s Treasure (1980)
3. The Cape Cod Caper (1982)
4. Death of a Voodoo Doll (1982)
5. Death on the Dragon’s Tongue (1982)
6. Lament for a Lady Laird (1982)
7. The Menehune Murders (1989)
8. Toby’s Folly (1990)
9. The Catacomb Conspiracy (1992)
10. The Cape Cod Conundrum (1992)
11. Dirge for a Dorset Druid (1994)
12. The Midas Murders (1995)
October 14th, 2014 at 12:54 pm
I have often wondered, with no explanation yet known, how a perfectly fine cozy series such as this one ended up at Playboy Press.
Countryman Press’s line of Foul Play Press mystery softcovers (eventually taken over by W. W. Norton) was a much better fit, but since these were technically speaking trade paperbacks, it made it very difficult for me to find them on ordinary newsstands or used bookshops, which is where I bought all my reading fiction for many years, not new bookstores.
In any case, Ellen Nehr was a devout fan of “Little Old Lady” detective stories, which quickly branched out into including “Little Old Men” detectives too. This particular series was of course a double delight to her.
She even convinced me to try one, and I hated to have to tell her that I did not get very far into it. But tastes change, and reading this old review makes finding one to try again awfully tempting. I doubt anything will come of this particular temptation, but stranger things have happened.
October 14th, 2014 at 4:20 pm
This does sound interesting. I looked on amazon.com and all 12 of the novels in the series are available for a penny plus postage. Not like the pre-internet days when it was not as easy to find books.
I looked Margot Arnold up on Wikipedia. She really is Petronelle Marguerite Mary Cook. Evidently still alive.
October 15th, 2014 at 3:41 pm
The review says middle aged, but they behaved middle old aged to be honest. At least Mrs. Pollifax wasn’t dead from the waist down.
Little old detectives are not really my forte. I tolerated a few Mr. Pinkerton’s, and of course Miss Marple, Mrs. Bradley and Pym, and the fellow in the corner in Baroness Orczy’s stories, but unless like Mr. Mycroft he turns out to be Sherlock Holmes my little old sleuth reading is limited.
I’m sorry, I do this for escape in part and it’s hard to escape with someone who has worse arthritis than you do.
These would look attractive, I’d pick one up, read a little, and then blah out. They weren’t badly written, but they just didn’t hold me and there was too much competition that did.